Or I suppose, to be more specific, a Catalonian tradition. The name of the game is called "Gather a mass crowd of people, and create towers and 'castles' of people that are 8 or 9 stories high." Or, as they like to call it here, "Catells." It's a tradition that goes back to the 18th century, and has recently gained momentum after it was added to the "UNESCO Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity," in November. I've yet to find rhyme or reason into exactly why they started doing such a crazy thing, but now it has become very important in the Catalonian culture.
To start the towers they get huge base of people on the ground. Probably 50-100 people are all packed in, leaning and pushing on each others backs. (The "Pinya.") Then people climb on their shoulders to the middle, where hands come out from all directions to grab there legs, and firmly cement them in place, making the "Folre." From there, the start stacking, and people climb on people, on top of people to create towers, that can get up to 8 or 9 stories tall. The very last people to climb up were these ity-bity kids, some as young as three or four. They were all wearing helmets, and seemed to know exactly what they were doing. I was both intrigued and horrified watching these tots climb up this wobbling towers, but I was assured it's safe (more so then American football, was the comparison.) All the climbers were barefoot-and had (super) tightly wound scarf around their waist, so that climber could get a toe in to help them climb up.
There were several team there "competing" but it was all very unified. The teams who were not building at the time would run over and add the "pinya" of the other teams. They all seemed very proud to be part of this culture, and keeping the tradition going. It was certainly fun to watch and take pictures of. I stood for almost three hours, and was amazed every second of it. It is definitely at the top of my list of things I love about Spain.
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